Chris Linnan's Thoughts

Menu

When I was a little kid I used to mow some for my neighbors’ lawns. In return I would get around twenty dollars (the actual amount depended on their generosity). I would then use the twenty dollars to buy six packs of $2.99 Showdown baseball cards (side note-Showdown was the absolute coolest). I was young…

That was a pretty uninspiring first-round of playoff basketball. The biggest story was the unusually high amount of injured star players and how it will affect teams in later rounds. On the bright side the Western Conference Playoffs will be infinitely more exciting this round, especially the Spurs-Thunder. On the downside, the Eastern Conference still…

I’ve had a pretty bad year prognosticating sports. My fantasy football team started Melvin Gordon almost half the season and my first-round draft pick was Dez Bryant. My March Madness bracket was so bad I cringe every time I think about it. I almost didn’t write a NBA playoffs predictions column because I didn’t want…

RIP “The Process.” As you are probably well-aware I was never a fan of “The Process.” I don’t think you should be rewarded for losing on purpose. If badminton can figure out how to punish people for intentionally throwing matches, then the NBA should be able to as well. Yet, it was a little bittersweet…

In a lot of ways the controversy over who LeBron James does and doesn’t follow on social media was the height of comedy. I mean, has there ever been a more heated discussion about whom a 31 year-old man follows on social media? I doubt it, but it’s not out-of-place with the way American media…

Until recently the Republican presidential primary has been largely devoid of arguments about higher education. Occasionally it’s been a topic, but the discussion has largely centered on taxes, immigration, and foreign policy. So, it’s refreshing to see that the candidates have turned their attention to regulating higher education. Unfortunately, the debate has largely focused on…

If you followed American media and did not actually live in America you would probably think the primary issues facing the average American are race, religion, and guns. Not a week goes by where the news media does not pick up some story related to the aforementioned themes, and divides itself into partisan camps that…

Somebody should do a totally serious TV mini-series featuring grouchy old-school players complaining about how easy players have it today. Really, it would be high comedy to watch Oscar Robertson complain about how Stephen Curry can’t actually shoot and watch other old-school players moan about how LeBron couldn’t have averaged twenty ppg thirty years ago.…

Goodbye NBA trade season, it was moderately fun while you lasted. As per usual some teams made some shrewd moves, some made trades that left fans completely befuddled, and most stood pat. So, let’s look back on some of these deals and evaluate the six most important ones. If there is one motif in these NBA…

It’s getting closer to the All-Star Break, which means we have a large enough sample size to start making biased cases for who should win various NBA awards. So, without further ado I present the first annual “Chris Linnan’s Imaginary Mid-season NBA MVP, ROY, and COY Ballot.” MVP 1) Stephen Curry- Let’s not try to…

I guess old biases die hard because frankly there is no other explanation for most of the political commentary that I read post-Fox News debate. I had thought that after many months of watching how Donald Trump operates and what makes him popular, political analysts would be able to offer more insightful commentary than “he…

A few weeks ago I wrote about how LeBron had become a quasi-player/coach/GM and yesterday we saw some of his power as his “coach,” David Blatt was fired. Now that Tyronn Lue has a new three-year contract, the Cavaliers are paying two former head coaches, Blatt and Mike Brown, to not coach in addition to…